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Contents

History

McDonough's first "official" encounter with the Transformers was in 1997. By this time, he was running a surf shop in North Carolina when he received a cease-and-desist order for slapping Transformers logos on shirts, hats, surfboards and other things he was selling.[1] Later he worked for Wizard: The Comics Magazine, where he would meet his future writing partner, Adam Patyk. Both of them tried to push for coverage of Transformers-related materials and eventually established contacts with Dreamwave representatives through magazine-related contacts and conventions.

When Dreamwave wanted to intensify their relationship with a larger, unnamed company, McDonough was hired to act as a "Creative Director" for Dreamwave.[2] When it was decided that Chris Sarracini would not write the second Generation One volume, contrary to what had been originally intended, McDonough was asked to write an entirely new story.[3] For a while, he would go by the alias "Brad Mick" to distinguish between his double duties, even going so far as referring to his "Brad Mick" persona in the third person in interviews. The "Brad Mick" guise first began to crack at a convention in 2003, when different Dreamwave representatives alternatively referred to McDonough by both names.[4]

With issue #5 of the third Generation One volume (now an ongoing title), McDonough brought his former Wizard colleague, Adam Patyk, on board, now forming a writing duo. With the following issue, McDonough would start using his real name, initially being credited as "James 'Brad Mick' McDonough", finally dropping the "Brad Mick" alias for good with issue 9. In addition, McDonough and Patyk also wrote the eight-issue More Than Meets The Eye limited series of profile books for Generation One characters and the three-issue Armada counterpart, the four-issue Micromasters mini-series and the 2004 Summer Special, as well as various non-Transformers-related titles published by Dreamwave, such as Custom Robo and Devil May Cry. Lastly, the two were supposed to write the crossover Transformers/G.I. Joe: Divided Front (of which ultimately only one issue would be released) and a solicited Beast Wars mini-series.

In late 2003/early 2004, Dreamwave started to delay payments for McDonough and Patyk, initially coming up with various excuses while at the same time assigning the two with additional work. Despite their threats to leave the company, McDonough and Patyk were repeatedly asked to stay in order to resolve the problems at hand. Eventually, Dreamwave's debt with the two writers would amount over $40,000. When they threatened legal action in mid-2004, they were fired by Dreamwave,[2] with the latter trying to suppress this delicate bit of information.[5] Their unpublished stories were supposed to be rewritten by Chris Sarracini (Generation One) and Simon Furman (Beast Wars), while McDonough and Patyk filed a lawsuit against Dreamwave.[6]

The case would ultimately never be settled, as Dreamwave officially filed for bankruptcy in early 2005. Meanwhile, McDonough and Patyk refused to offer any kind of public closure to their planned storylines unless they were paid the money they felt they were owed by Dreamwave.[7]

Note:The exact credits for the joint works with Patyk are as follows: "Brad Mick" for Generation One (vol. 3) #5, More Than Meets the Eye (G1) #1-8, More Than Meets the Eye (Armada) #1-3 and the Transformers Summer Special; "James 'Brad Mick' McDonough" for Generation One (vol. 3) #6-8 and Micromasters #1-2; and simply "James McDonough" for Generation One (vol. 3) #9-10 and Micromasters #3-4.